


Failing Hogwarts

by JosieRuby1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hogwarts, No Harry Potter characters, POV Second Person, muggle, muggle born
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosieRuby1/pseuds/JosieRuby1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're 11 years old and a letter arrives, telling you you're a witch/wizard. You think it's a joke but more letters arrive. You're 11 years old and everything you know and love and trust is torn away from you for a gothic castle and no electricity</p>
            </blockquote>





	Failing Hogwarts

But like imagine being muggle born. You’re 11 years old and all through your life you’ve been a bit lonely, people thinking you’re a freak because you can do weird things and there’s no way to explain them. You receive a letter than tells you that you’re a wizard/witch.

At first you think it’s a joke, someone is trying to mess with your head. You ignore it but more come. You read them all and your parents start to believe them all. Suddenly you have an explanation and things are maybe better now. But these letters are telling you you’ve got a place at this magical school in the middle of nowhere, far away from the muggle world.

You’re struggling to come to term with all this new jargon. “Hogwarts” “Diagon Alley” “Muggle” “Quill” “Cauldron” and you have to go away. Away from your parents, the people who support you through everything and don’t think you’re a freak. Away from your school, which okay is lonely but it’s still your school. Away from the few friends you have. Away from your street and your neighbours dog and the kid up the road who adores you. Away from the local bakery and the cafe you and your Mum go to to talk about anything and everything. Away from your  Gran who’s old and ill. Away from your favourite uncle who always plays football with you.

You talk about refusing, about not going, about ignoring it all and pretending it never happened. It’s the summer holidays and you’re starting big school in September. But big school means Secondary School, not a freaking hidden castle in the middle of nowhere. Big school means being able to learn a language properly rather than just the basics like colours and shapes not learning how to float things and whatever.

You go with you Mum to that cafe you always go to and the two of you weigh up the pros and cons and in the end, you decide to go. You have to because otherwise you’ll be constantly wondering what it was like, if it would have been better. So you get ready, you go to diagon alley, you meet ollivander and you get your wand. You get your quills and ink and parchment, thinking it’s far too valuable and old fashioned and wishing for pens and paper because gel pens come in all the colours and paper comes in such pretty styles and this parchment just seems so rough and ragged and wrong. You flick your wand around a load of times, but stop after a lightbulb shatters when you’re home that night.

The last few weeks of summer are spent, staring at everything you have accumulated, and trying to explain to your few friends that you do have that you won’t be at their school with them, despite all the months you all spent talking about it. You wander around saying goodbye to everything you recognise and no. Your parents try to reassure you that it’s not really goodbye, it’s only a couple of months until Christmas.

Eventually September 1st comes and you get to King’s Cross, you walk through a wall and you get the feeling that that’s just the start in all the weird things you are going to have to do. You’re sobbing your heart out when you get on the train, you don’t want to go, you don’t want to leave your parents, you don’t want to have magic. The train pulls away and before long you can’t even see the platform or your barely-keeping-it-together Mother and strong-beyond-measure Father.

You’re crying the whole way to Hogwarts. Some kids are making fun of the sad little kid in that cubicle. Some kinds trying to ask your if you’re okay and if you want to talk. One really nice kid even buys you a chocolate frog, but you just sob even more because the chocolate hopped away but this kid tells you all about the famous witch or wizard that’s on the card and hey, there’s other chocolate around.

Eventually you calm down, happy to have a friend, and you get to school. You go over this lake with a terrifying guy who looked about 20 feet or something. He’s huge. You’re lead into the most terrifying building you have ever seen, it’s gigantic and has towers and so many steps and it looks so old. Inside, there’s no lighting, but there’s castles all over the place. Suddenly you understand the meaning of the word gothic and it’s horrific. You’re barely not shaking as you walk in, you’re barely not crying again.

You’re with all the other first years, their are dozens of you in varying states of emotion. Some are muttering to themselves and friends they have already, you are desperately wishing you had your teddy out to cling on to. Eventually your name is called and you have to put a talking hat on your head, which gets to decide who you are for the next seven years of your life. It gets you look at you and decide what is so important for you.

You are placed. Is it Slytherin where everyone will assume you are untrustworthy? Is it Gryffindor where you have to be brave? Hufflepuff misunderstood and assumed weak? Or Ravenclaw where you have to be smart. It’s so much pressure on top of everything else. But you join your houses table because you have to.

The head stands and his power is overwhelming. The entire room silences at his indication that he wants to talk. The hall is huge but he needs know microphone, he simply is heard. It’s another thing that scares you about this place. Your adding up quite a list already

No electricity  
A giant man?  
A huge castle  
Candles  
The headteacher  
The number of people around you  
It’s so loud, so intense, everyone seems to be excited and happy, everyone seems to fit in. The people on your table are welcoming you and all the other first years, telling you exactly why this is the best house. You aren’t listening. You dig in to the feast that suddenly appeared. The food is amazing - you won’t tell your mother it’s even better than her cooking - and you eat a lot.

Eventually you are taken to your house’s area. Up a tower or down in dungeons. Either way is not pretty. All of this is adding up to something out of those films Dad tried to stop you from sneaking in to watch. Their are ghosts. And you scream loudly when a painting talks to you. This causing giggling from others and an unimpressed look from the prefect leading you.

You go quiet again, swallowing back a sob and get lead into the common room. You are then shown by some older students where you’re going to be sleeping. You’re in a room with three or fours others, also first years. They are loud and excited and you’re just curled up in bed early crying because you wanna see your Mum and your Dad and this bed - while huge and comfortable and even having curtains around it - just isn’t your own.

Eventually you fall asleep, maybe you reached a point where there were no tears left or maybe it was sheer mental exhaustion from everything of the day. But you sleep and you sleep through the night. The next morning when you wake, you don the robes of your house, finding them somewhat ridiculous, why can’t you just wear a jumper or something? Your eyes are sore because you cried just so much tomorrow. You’re not ready for this. You can’t cope with this.

You head through your first day. As you deal with a mental teacher in Defence Against the Dark Arts you instantly feel terrified about what you learn about dark wizards and witches of the past and what wizards and witches are capable of. Your wand terrifies you.

Until you get to Charms. The teacher is wonderful and you honestly enjoy yourself. You learn a simple charm and you want to learn some more. History of Magic is interesting as well, and you find yourself trying to place it into the parts of normal history that you know.

Potions makes you lose it all over again. You’ve got through the majority of the day, you’re struggling, you want to talk to your Mum and the charms, your Dad about the history, you want to see your friends and tell them about it. Maybe it would be better if they were witches and wizard as well. But the Potions teacher is a nightmare. His hair is grimy and his voice is cold and sickly. He seems to hate everything and everyone. You’re quiet, throughout, doing everything you are told to, working with your friend from the train.

By the time you leave potions, you skip the evening meal and go straight to your room. You struggling remembering you have to give a password or something to a talking painting and it becomes too much. You flop onto your bed and sob your heart out once again, wondering how many tears you can possibly hold, wishing you could get a hug from your Mum or your Dad.

Three or four days pass in a similar manor. Only worse. You hear comments from other students. Not everyone, not even the majority, but it’s enough. You hear them talking about muggle born wizards and witches. You learn the word mudblood and it sounds a lot like freak. It’s a flashback you can’t avoid.

You try writing a letter to your parents, but each time you start it, you struggle with the quill - it doesn’t work properly and you want to kiss the creator of the pen. Each time you start you write I want to come home, screw it up and chuck it out. You aren’t coping. Maybe you’re crying less, but you’re jumpy, you’re missing your parents, you’re wanting to go home. Boarding school had never even been an option for you, not something you had even thought about or considered. You long for your proper school, your Secondary School with your friends.

You grow to hate it. You hate the magic. You hate the school. You hate the teachers - most of them. You hate everything around you. Anger feels you and after only a few days you’ve given up. You’ve had enough. You’re tired and lost and cannot deal with it. You are suppose to be at home.

By the end of the week, you march into Professor Flitwick’s office. He’s your favourite teacher by far. He doesn’t freak you out by turning into a cat or make you uncomfortable with his grimy hair and voice. He’s small and unassuming and you feel you can talk to him.

Professor Flitwick tells you to give it a bit longer, he tells you to keep trying, that he knows it’s a culture shock. You end up screaming at him, tears pouring down your face as you do so. He doesn’t know, you can’t keep trying, you won’t give it a bit longer. You tell him that you’re had enough, that you want your Mum.

And finally, finally, you tell him that if he doesn’t send you back to your parents right now, you will run away. You don’t care about the logics, not knowing how to get out of there, not knowing how to get back to your world, not knowing even where you are in relation to home. But it gets his attention, you can see he is listening now.

He agrees. You’re going through the motions of packing all your things, ignoring the questions from your roommates. You’re in a daze, feeling lost, broken, wrong. Like a failure. But Professor Flitwick does it for you. He sorts it all out. He gets you home. He makes sure you aren’t alone until you’re back with your parents.

Your parents hug you, kiss you, hold you close and take you home. They make you hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows, they make you toast with butter and jam. It's no feast but it's the best meal you've eaten since you left. That night you sleep in your own bed, you sleep quietly and peacefully, in the morning, your Mum wakes you with a gently nudge and a cup of tea. 

They take you out, back dressed in your own, ordinary closed. You all go to the cafe. The one for talking. And you do just that, you talk. You talk about Hogwarts and magic and classes and homesickness, you talk about trying and failing. You talk about school, normal school, you talk about hopes and dreams and life and everything. As you talk, you stop feeling like a failure, you know while you may not have been able to make it in the wizarding world, you’re going to be a damn good muggle. 


End file.
